google search engine

If I actually had before me two sites to be reviewed and knew the page rank right up front [which I don't] and both sites had equal value in my eyes - I would review the one with the lower page rank first, since it is harder to find, and putting it in ODP makes it easier to find, therfore the added value is greater.

However, in reality, I doubt any editor pays attention to PR.

bobrat said:

I would review the one with the lower page rank first, since it is harder to find, and putting it in ODP makes it easier to find, therfore the added value is greater.

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This is a fascinating statement, at least to me. I realize that this is a hypothetical scenario. Still, I must ask: would you consider this virtuous notion to be shared by most editors?

Considering that very few editors know or bothering checking the ranking or PR of a site, I'd say the question is irrelevant.

Think of it as a "thought experiment" that couldn't be replicated in the lab -- or oughtn't to be.

But, to turn the question around, editors that I've heard express concern to review the higher-page-rank sites are ... um, extremely rare. I don't remember the last one I spotted, but your chances are probably better to see an Ivory-Bill mating dance.

motsa said:

Considering that very few editors know or bothering checking the ranking or PR of a site, I'd say the question is irrelevant.

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Any editor with the Google toolbar embedded in their browser will immediately see the PR of every site they visit. (Although I suspect you are right that most will ignore it.)

Yes, I think this is one of those attitudinal things that spammers find so hard to understand -- they are trying to get their site be the first in the search engines of ... all the other sites that are just like theirs. And the ODP is just another tool to manipulate to their advantage (or to whine about 'not providing me with the personal service of a "level playing field" against anyone with whom I wish to compete,' if they can't manipulate it.)

But the ODP approach is looking for the sites that are different -- not the ones that are all the same. And those sites are worth listing, not because they have "more" than some other site, or "better" than some other site, but because what they have, no other site has at all!

So a site "is listable or not listable", not "has statistics almost good enough to get from position 11 to position 9 on the Google search for the following popular search term..." A completely different kind of criterion, and a completely different kind of listing.

Any editor with the Google toolbar embedded in their browser will immediately see the PR of every site they visit.

Click to expand...

From internal discussions I know that many editors don't have that. The hypothetical "regular surfer" probably doesn't (or does it come included in the pre-installed IE for Windows these days?) and I think a majority of our editors are probably representative of that. That's just a guess though - I don't know.

My question was most certainly not about the PR, irrelevance of which has been discussed innumerable times here at RZ. I was merely trying to ascertain whether this rather commendable notion intimated by bobrat, in my opinion at least, to have an editorial tilt towards a less popular information source, comparatively speaking of course, is shared by most editors.

This statement by hutcheson sums it up nicely:

hutcheson said:

But the ODP approach is looking for the sites that are different -- not the ones that are all the same. And those sites are worth listing, not because they have "more" than some other site, or "better" than some other site, but because what they have, no other site has at all!

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Thank you all for your time and consideration.

>> Any editor with the Google toolbar embedded in their browser... <<

I would guess that the vast majority of Editors use Mozilla, or Firefox, Opera, just about anything but IE...

Do people still use IE? I thought it died about a year ago.

There is a firefox extension to display a sites PR on the status bar but it's more a novelty than useful.

hi, i am trying to get our website http://www.survivingprostatecancerwithoutsurgery.org in DMOZ and its been sometime like almost a year and we are still not getting there - we havent received any feedback or reports regarding our status - or has it been reject so we can work on it please advice- i'm been reading over and over again the guidelines- please help me out

Please read the FAQ here at R-Z. It will answer questions like "How long until my site will be reviewed?"
BTW, you will (almost) never receive feedback regarding the status of your suggestion.

i'm been reading over and over again the guidelines- please help me out

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Is your site listable according to those guidelines? If it isn't then you can bet when it is reviewed it will be rejected. If it is listable then the FAQ on this site will answer the question. Either way you can work out the current status for yourself:

Listable, not listed - pending
Listable, listed - accepted
Not listable, not listed - rejected

Just wondering about notification

Hi,
I understand that you don't answer questions about submission status etc. That's not why I'm posting. However, there is one thing I'm wondering about that I couldn't find the answer to in your FAQ's and that is, when my website is finally reviewed, will I be notified of acceptance or rejection? I ask because it's been a number of months since I submitted and I don't want to upset you by submitting again. So, I'm just wondering if I'd be notified when it's eventually looked at.
FYI, the website in question is asiaexpat.info

Regards,

Mandrake.

No, there is no notice of a site review. The reasons for this OUGHT to be obvious to even the most casual observer of the net, and ARE painfully obvious to any experienced editor.


For the vast majority of sites, creating the notice would take more time than reviewing the site, thus reducing editor productivity by more than 50%.

For a not insignificant minority of sites, sending the
notice would physically endanger the editor.

For 80-90% of submittals, and probably about the same percentage of sites, the information would go directly to active spammers, who would use it to spam the ODP more effectively -- the potential risks of productivity loss here are incalculable but could be greater than any other kind of harm to the directory I've ever been able to imagine.

And for about 9999 out of 10000 sites, the notice would serve no practical good to an honest webmaster, even if it WENT to the webmaster rather than the submitter.

For a significant number of sites where we THINK the site could be improved, the webmaster isn't interested or isn't able to do anything anyway.

And, of course, we tried it (in the relative safety of this forum.) Anyone can see the results: well, most of the results: the forum archives contains some of the milder reactions we got -- the really vicious ones were deleted and/or turned over to the police. Anyone can also see how seldom the information was useful.

It's a really really really bad idea.

Well, as the operator of a forum like this one, I'm well used to abusive visitors.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply, although I'll point out that I'm probably the most polite man you'll ever know on the net

Thanks again,

Mandrake.

Mandrake, most people on the net are polite. But we can't tell the difference between the polite folk and the psychopaths who are just being charming to see if that gets them what they want. And ... sure, more than 90% of people will politely reply (or will politely decline to reply). But ... say you're an editor reviewing a hundred sites a week. How many hours would it be before you hit a psycho?

Indeed, it wouldn't take very long indeed.
Out of curiosity, don't your reviewers make use of DMOZ emailing systems in order to protect them from such abuse? Surely that would be better for their protection should they need to contact a webmaster? I appreciate their position would put them right in the firing line abusive people.

No, we don't. Editors asked about that possibility. The reason given was that editors don't officially represent AOL, and therefore should not be sending mail from an "official" AOL server.

But that's only one point on the list. We're talking about an activity that is BOTH risky AND pointless. There's no point in spending effort devising and implementing a plan to make it a risk-free, pointless activity.